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Religion.
Would human life have been better without religion?

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Religion.

Abiathar
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Posted 04/28/08 - 07:06 PM:	#26
Sorry, how remiss of me, I was being unkind... "Superstition (Latin superstes, "standing over", "set above") is a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to supposedly irrational beliefs of others, and its precise meaning is therefore subjective. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy and spiritual beings." By definition, Science is not superstition. Just the way it works unfortunately.

yiming
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Posted 04/28/08 - 07:12 PM:	#27
Hey Abiathar, you are really on my case. I feel like Jason Bourne being hunted by the KGB. I will have to kill you (in a philosophical sense).

hipskipdip
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Posted 04/29/08 - 05:41 AM:	#28
Wosret wrote: "Harris argues for reason and evidence, Hitchens argues that religion is evil, and Dawkins argues that it's wrong." Yeah, I see that. I just got the sense from Dawkins that he was more militant about it then was necessary. jdrw wrote: "Unless someone can explain how exactly to define and measure and compare the positives vs. the negatives, the whole issue is unresolvable." What we need is a supernatural judger, someone who possess infinite wisdom, power, and goody-ness. Oh and talks directly into each of our heads. I feel the positives of being religiously sober everyday, of course, like anyone I slip here and there and accidentally find my self in a church or mosque chanting. We don't receive our moral information like we do about physical objects like trees and bunnies, but that we construct and insist upon bountries to conduct born out of a need for them. I think that's Sam Harris' argument, the world is much different now and religious ideologies pose serious barriors to sensible discourse.
_____________________ "What the world calls clever more often is vanity and narrowness." - Goethe, Faust. "I am God! How do I know? Everytime I pray to God I realize that I'm just talking to myself." - The Ruling Class "You may not agree with everything I say, but at the very least, you'll understand that your differing opinion is wrong." -Steven Colbert

Abiathar
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Posted 04/29/08 - 01:53 PM:	#29
I'm right here, hipskip, all the wisdom of the ages, I simply have a bad memory and cannot remember it at this time... However let us assume this from another angle. Without religion there would be no debate on religion. Thus, this topic and others like it would not exist. The overly guarded designations that make us who we are, Athiest, Devout, Faithful, Skeptical, Agnostic, etc, would also hold no meaning nor perspective. Without a religion there would have, unfortuantely, been no real philosophy to begin with, as most of the proto-modern greek thinkers (before Socrates) debated morality based upon religion, right and wrong, and the functionality of the gods on the universe. Without those base thoughts, it is highly likely that Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and the like would not have begun the Age of Thought. This is easily apparent as mostly their most famous works were refutes to older, more intuitive works. Based off of the intuition of the elder, the younger philosophers created the concept of regimented logic. From this aspect, also, without the ascribing of, as I have stated before, dieties inwhich could be made common place occourances and had valid explainations (for the time) the people ceased to fear as much and learned to use the rest of their minds and put them to work. Thus, Religion as a base concept gave leave for the expansion and domination of the planet by the human race. What better reason than to learn of the universe, than to learn the truth. The truth is only hidden by religion which is where most of our ancient history comes from. The bible described Rameses thousands of years before we ever found his body or believed he existed. The same was true for most biblical characters. Its a tomb of history, shrouded with lies, slander and mis-information. However, due to its 'religious' nature the bible has been more well kept and accurate than most other historical records. Even though the Council of Mycene almost erradicated any real character intereaction and changed many of the concepts of events from less litteral to more mystical, they did leave the physical locations, names, and descriptions of the biblical story. As such we have found the following, with achaelogical proof: Babylon, Miggedon, Sumeria and Mesopothamia as a whole, and many other locales. It is currently believed that the 'paradise' this book speaks of was also located about 500 miles south of where we have looked for it, further down the Tigris and Euphrates, where the Gulf now covers it in water... there are 4 River beds there, and roughly 10,000 years ago it was unflooded and a flat fertile plane. This of course does not prove the existance of a Garden of Paradise, or Adam and Eve, but it is possible that a city or other civilization resided there, and were forced out by a natural occurance that was seen as divine. This of course has been changed in the midst of time, and the real history has been lost, but the hint is all we need. Religion keeps records, out of faith, and as such they keep far bettter records than those often burned in archives.

hipskipdip
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Posted 04/30/08 - 07:20 AM:	#30
Abiathar wrote: "Without religion there would be no debate on religion. Thus, this topic and others like it would not exist. The overly guarded designations that make us who we are, Athiest, Devout, Faithful, Skeptical, Agnostic, etc, would also hold no meaning nor perspective." Terminology isn't what makes me who I am. There are a number of things people consider themselves which I do not ascribe, therefore I would be "a-" whatever they are, meaning "without." Skeptic, devout, faithfulness are practices presupposing a perspective and aren't denominations purporting view-points. Atheism get's it meaning from theism, since it is a term applied to people without theism. But since the theist is making all the claims, I find it amusing we'd need a term for those who do not make these same claims. I believe the universe is controlled by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans and since none of you believe this to be true or even relevant information you're all a-lizardists. "Without a religion there would have, unfortuantely, been no real philosophy to begin with, as most of the proto-modern greek thinkers (before Socrates) debated morality based upon religion, right and wrong, and the functionality of the gods on the universe. Without those base thoughts, it is highly likely that Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and the like would not have begun the Age of Thought. This is easily apparent as mostly their most famous works were refutes to older, more intuitive works. Based off of the intuition of the elder, the younger philosophers created the concept of regimented logic." You're ascribing the cause of thoughtful thinking to religion? They invented a premise and then worked from it, and without this premise thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle couldn't have been the thinkers they were? "From this aspect, also, without the ascribing of, as I have stated before, dieties inwhich could be made common place occourances and had valid explainations (for the time) the people ceased to fear as much and learned to use the rest of their minds and put them to work." Ah, and because they were all so afraid of the unexplained, it was necessarily so that they invented dieties, or diefied-theories about the world around them. No doubt the world around us needs some explanation for us to feel at home, primarily: "what is our place in this world?" Given the tools at hand, we constructed what seemed to be reasonable explanations. As more and more tools were created, mathematics, logic, tools of measurement, and civilizations (or division of labor) you have an expansion in our knowledge and interests. Without the interest to humanity, knowledge might not ever have been sought (i.e. the medieval times). You have theological interests supressing knowledge and explanatory interests throughout time (i.e. Socrates, Galileo, Leonardo, Darwin, Einstein) and continues today. I'm not going to argue that modern day chemistry owes itself to metallurgy or alchemists, but simply progressed out of them. It would be a genetic fallacy for me to hold chemistry responsible for the past it arose from and not see if for what it is today. I would say philosophical thought has always been part of the human experience and depending on the answer you settle for, you get theology or you get philosophy and the sciences. Edited by hipskipdip on 04/30/08 - 07:33 AM
_____________________ "What the world calls clever more often is vanity and narrowness." - Goethe, Faust. "I am God! How do I know? Everytime I pray to God I realize that I'm just talking to myself." - The Ruling Class "You may not agree with everything I say, but at the very least, you'll understand that your differing opinion is wrong." -Steven Colbert

iSerpent.
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Posted 05/07/08 - 01:37 PM:	#31
Religion is an interesting subject. It has been the cause of many wars, deaths, hopes, and bringing lives into the world; amoung many, many other things. Honestly, the truth is, the world revolves around religion. Yes, there are plenty of people out there that could care less about religion, or beliefs; but, admittedly, if an athiest found out he/she was going to die tomorrow, it's most likely going to be that they will find something to believe in before that time comes. We all want a comfort, or a guarentee that after this life, there is something. Or atleast at some point in our life. And while religion has gone overboard, I believe that it has built somewhat of a stability within society. Take this for example: The theory of "Hell". Honestly. If people in the world thought that there was no hell, or no punishment after death, then they would go around doing whatever they please. In other words, total chaos. So, fear has alot to do with it. And the majority of the world fears religion, or atleast something in it. I'm not saying this to be true in all cases; after all, individuality exists, free will exists, and skeptics, amoung others exist. So not everyone's world complete revolves around religion, and to some, they don't even believe in anything. So they could care less~ In a way, I believe that religion is a good thing for existence, but I honestly think that some take it way too far. Which is the cause of damage, which is the cause for many people going against a certain religion.
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The_Rational_Animal
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Posted 05/08/08 - 02:48 PM:	#32
Wosret wrote: I'm not worried about the religious per se, I'm worried about people that believe absurd things. Whether they involve magic or not. Absolutely. In discussions like this one, I always think of the old NRA saying: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Religion itself is not bad; in fact, religion has the ability to do many great things, to unify people, to bring peace and stability to groups, to teach people how to be good, and so forth. But sometimes, people use religion as a weapon, as a gun, to initiate dangerous deeds. Religion in itself is irrational, meaning it is indefensible by reason and argument. Thus, without premises, an infinite amount of disagreements may arise without reason, and this is where the conflict arises. People who accept religion as something to die for are sadly mistaken and are willing to justify the most horrible actions irrationally. It is the people who make religion, bad, not religion in itself. So the answer to the question is that it would not be better if religion did not exist; it would be better, however, if people used reason a little more.
_____________________ "Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand

essence
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Posted 05/09/08 - 06:36 AM: Subject: Relgion vs Spirituality	#33
Humanity will make a leap forward on the day that it learns to distinguish religion from spirituality. What I mean by these two terms is that a religion is a particlar set of beliefs around spiritual questions like "What is the meaning of life?", "Why am here?", "Is there a God?", "What is the true nature of reality?" Spirituality, on the other hand, is any answer that one may give to any of these questions. According to these defintions we will find that many of us are religious, but that all of us are spiritual -even atheists- as all of us have some kind of an answer to these questions, however skeptical, cynical, or hopeful they may be. Making this distinction will enable humanity to move forward because it will both highlight the inescapablity of spirituality, and the possibility of engaging in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge outside of a religious context. Spiritual knowlege is in need of advancement outside of a religious context for several reasons. Perhaps the most obvious one is that most major religions have decided that they already have all of the answers. This has caused the evolution of spiritual knowlege within any who adhere to such a belief to come to a virtual sandstill. A second reason is that among these answers are several ideas that demonstrate great dysfunction that -given our current circumstances as oppossed to the time at which most of these systems were conceived- threaten the extincion of human life on the planet earth. Here are some of the most dangerous: The idea that there is a chosen people or a chosen few. The idea that these people are better than other people. The idea that there is a war between good and evil that will culminate in a final conflict at which time the true believers (fill in whichever religion you happen to be following because it couldn't be those other guys!)will inherit some heavenly victory. The idea of a punishing deity. The idea of hell. The idea that the human body and its natural functions is wrong or shameful. The idea that evil exists. The list goes on... Why does what people believe even matter and who cares? All of this matters a great deal because it is our answers to these fundamental questions that underlie and determine our entire philosopical frame of reference. Our philosophical frame of reference, furthermore, determines what we think. What we think, finally, determines how we choose to act. It may be that there has been no other point in the time of human history when how people collectively choose to think and then act was of greater consequence to the drama of life on earth than today. Will this be our final act, or will we write a more glorious play? Edited by essence on 05/09/08 - 06:44 AM

doomdragonz
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Posted 05/13/08 - 09:34 AM:	#34
If religion did not exist in todays world, it would be in chaos, people would have no reason to keep the morals they did before, I am not saying because someone is not religious it makes them immoral, I myself do not believe in a god or anything, but a lot of people would do many things they would not have otherwise if they did not have a God to believe in. Yes in the past it was a bad thing, but I dont think that a world that bases everything on science nad logic could exist, a world with a majority of people that believe in a reason that they are here seems like it would be a more moral world, it takes a certain person to live a subtle life without a God to believe in, in my opinion.

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